Yubico is making it easier for businesses to buy its YubiKeys
Two new enterprise services will streamline the logistical challenges involved in the tech's adoption.
A growing number of companies are looking at hardware authentication security keys as a trusted and convenient way to protect sensitive corporate data. Indeed, Google has recently launched an open source project to help advance the uptake of this technology. But for companies with hundreds of employees, ensuring the right people have the right keys can be a huge logistical undertaking and added expense. As such, security key maker Yubico has launched an enterprise service to help businesses integrate the tech into their operations more easily.
The company is initially offering two services: YubiEnterprise Subscription (which is available now), and YubiEnterprise Delivery (which is slated for release in spring). YubiEnterprise Subscription is an annual per-user pricing model that allows companies to subscribe to a specific service tier based on how many users they need to support. The idea is that by moving away from a per-key purchasing model, organizations can better predict future spending and upgrades. This one is designed for businesses with 750 YubiKey users or more.
The second offering, YubiEnterprise Delivery, takes care of the actual logistics of key distribution. Via a dedicated Yubico portal (or software that can be integrated directly into existing IT software using public APIs) IT administrators can keep a track of who needs access to which keys, and the service will manage inventory, ship keys to the relevant people, monitor delivery and manage returns or replacements.
Yubico is one of the biggest players in the security key business -- and its tech is widespread across Windows and iOS devices -- so it's not a surprise that it's the first one to make this kind of offering. And it's much-needed -- businesses overall are gradually waking up to the benefits of security keys, but until now the logistical challenges in implementing them means they've largely been the sole preserve of smaller companies. Yubico's enterprise service opens the tech up to much larger companies, which will no doubt help accelerate its adoption overall.
